THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

NORTH  CAROLINA 


THE   COLLECTION   OF 
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UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


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Philanthropic  Hall,  June  3d,  1841. 
Dear  Sir:  At  a  meeting  of  the  Plulanthropic  Society,  held  oa  the  2d 
inst,,  the  following  Resolution  was  unanimously  adopted  : 
.  Resolved,  That  the  Committee  of  Correspondence  he  instructed  to  tender 
the  thants  of  this  Society  to  James  C.  Bruce,  Esquire,  for  his  highly  eloquent 
and  classic  Addres5  delivered  before  the  Alumni  and  Graduating  Class  on  the 
evening  preceding  Commencement,  and  request  a  copy  of  the  same  for  pub- 
lication. "        « 

In  addition,  permit  us  to  convey  to  you  the  gratification  we  experienced 
during  its  delivery,  and  respectfully  to  add  our  personal  solicitations  to  those  of 
the  body  we  represent.  Yours  respectfully, 

.         WM.  F.  MARTIN, 
A.  W.  SPAIGHT, 
€     ^  •  WM.  A.  BELL, 

To  Jame»  C.  Bruce,  Esquire,  — *   ^  Committee, 

.4 


Chapel  Hill,  June  Zd,  1841. 
Gentlemen :  Your  note  of  this  morning,  gratifies  me  with  the  assurance, 
ibat  ray  Address  was  well  received  by  the  members  of  our  Society,  and  I  will 
with  great  pleasure  furnish  you,  as  you  desire,  with  a  copy  for  publication. — 
Grateful  for  the  distinction  which  their  selection  has  conferred  upon  me,  I  have 
only  to  regret  that  I  cannot  acquit  myself  of  the  obligation  by  presenting  thena 
with  a  performance  more  worthy  of  their  acceptance. 

With  the  best  wishes  for  the  prosperity  of  the  Society  and  the  happiness  of 
its  members,  I  am,  gentlemen, 

Your  friend  and  fellow-member, 

JAMES  C.  BRUCE. 
To  Wm.  F.  Martin,  A.  W.  Spaiqht,  Wm.  A.  Bell,  Committee, 


ADDRESS.  ^  0 

— ♦- — 

Gentlemen  Ali'mm  : 

It  was  the  custom  of  our  fathers,  and  one 

even  now  held  sacred  by  many  a  family  of  my  acquamtance,  to  call 
together  once  in  the  year,  all  of  its  members,  whom  the  various  pur- 
suits of  life  had  scattered  abroad.  They  assembled  on  some  high  re- 
ligious festival,  around  the  same  domestic  altar,  for  the  purpose  of  hon- 
oring tlieir  earthly  parents,  and  worshiping  their  heavenly  father. — 
The  powerful  aids  of  a  purifying  religion  were  called  in,  to  invigor- 
ate the  hallowed  sentiment  of  filial  reverence  and  obedience.  The 
mysterious  web  spun  in  the  nursery,  and  wound  around  the  hearts  and 
affections  of  the  oflspring  of  the  same  parents,  worn  by  time,  or  alas ! 
as  too  often  happens,  torn  by  the  conflicts  of  interest  or  passion,  were 
at  these  holy  periods  wove  anew.  Impelled  by  a  kindred  feeling, 
gentlemen,  we  the  children  of  the  same  bountiful  mother,  have  now 
come  together  in  obedience  to  her  annual  call,  to  offer  to  her  the  horn- 
age  of  our  affection,  our  gratitude,  and  our  reverence  ;  and  to  prove  to 
each  other  that  mutual  kindness  is  still  the  tenant  of  our  bosoms,  and 
that  the  toils,  the  anxieties,  the  cares,  and  the  strifes  of  a  busy  life,  have 
made  no  impression  on  our  hearts  which  friendship  need  disown,  or 
this  spot  hallowed  in  our  memory  ai^d  its  associations,  need  rebuke.- — 
We  have  the  pleasure  too,  of  shaking  by  the  hand  many  of  our  young- 
er brethren,  whom  though  unseen  before,  we  can  not  look  on  as  stran- 
gers, without  forgetting,  that  they  were  nursed  on  the  same  lap  with 
ourselves,  have  read  the  same  books,  tenanted  the  same  rooms,  received 
instruction  from  the  same  lips,  frequented  the  same  haunts  of  amuse 
ment,  and  heard  the  same  bell,  whose  sound  was  alternately  solemn, 
melancholy,  or  pleasing,  as  it  summoned  to  devotion,  to  lecture,  or  to 
idleness. 

Amid  all  the  pleasures,  and  they  are  not  small  nor  few,  which 
memory  is  calling  up  in  connexion  with  this  place,  our  recollection  is 
busy  in  vindicating  the  melancholy  truth,  inscribed  on  each  page  of 
eartli's  history,  teaching  us  that  every  rose  has  an  attendant  thorn,  and 
every  pleasure  a  pain,  which  clings  to  it,  as  a  part  of  it.  Moments 
passed  here  in  idleness,  that  should  have  been  consecrated  to  study  and 
improvement,  rise  up  to  rebuke  us,  and  reveal  to  our  consciences,  that 
they  are  gone  forever.     In  counting  over  our  living  friends,  how  many 


AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 


of  our  dead  companions  stand  up  before  us.  to  proclaim  how  busy  has 
been  "  the  insatiate  archer"  amidst  our  ranks  !  His  shaft  has  been  aim- 
ed at  the  most  sliining  marks.  Three  of  my  own  class  at  the  moment 
of  putting  on  the  toga  virilis,  and  but  a  short  time  after  they  were 
clothed  with  the  honors  of  this  institution,  and  had  become  hopeful 
candidates  for  the  honors  of  the  world,  were  snatched  away  from  us 
forever.  Imagination  bursts  the  cerements  of  the  grave  and  calls  up 
before  us  the  venerable  man,  who  so  long,  and  so  beneficially  presided, 
over  the  destinies  of  this  institution.  He  has  fallen  in  the  maturity  of 
his  years  and  his  virtues,  and  thousands  of  young  men  on  whom  he 
buckled  the  armor  of  learning,  religion,  and  virtue,  and  sent  forth  in- 
to the  world,  to  honor  and  usefulness,  will  shed  a  tear  to  his  memory. 
No  genuine  son  of  this  institution,  can  revisit  the  scene  of  his  labors 
and  his  life,  without  giving  up  a  few  moments,  at  least,  to  mournful 
contemplation,  at  the  recollection  of  so  much  learning,  so  much  piety, 
and  so  much  devotion  to  the  noble  cause  of  education,  now  lost  to  the 
world  forever  ;  nor  without  a  whispered  prayer  that  his  mantle  with  all 
the  wearers  sanctity  about  it,  may  descend  to  his  successors  through  all 
time.  But  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  call  up  unavailing  regrets — they 
come  without  the  calling — nor  to  attempt  an  analysis  of  that  mysteri- 
ous alchimy  which  converts  much  of  what  memory  holds  of  early 
days,  even  things  indifferent  or  painful,  into  the  most  delightful  pre- 
sent enjoyments.  What  these  scenes  can  not  effect,  any  language  of 
mine  would  fail  to  accomplish. 

If  each  individual  whom  1  now  address,  would  give  to  us  his  ex- 
perience of  the  world,  and  show  to  us  the  picture  he  had  drawn  of  men 
and  things  as  they  appeared  to  him  while  looking  from  the  windows 
of  these  college  buildings,  revised  and  corrected,  after  ten  years  jost- 
ling with  the  beings,  whom  business  or  pleasure  caused  to  walk  the 
same  path  with  himself,  I  doubt  whether  the  Louvre  or  the  Vatican 
could  show  any  thing  more  curious,  more  instructive,  or  more  enter- 
taining. What  a  wonderful  and  diversified  mingling  there  would  be, 
of  light  and  shade  !  Still  the  objects  painted  are  always  the  same,  the 
difference  of  coloring  depending  altogether  on  the  variant  positions  of 
each  canvass.  To  the  gloomy,  the  light  would  be  as  dark  as  that 
which  steals  through  the  stained  glass  of  a  Gothic  window,  to  the 
light  hearted  and  joyous,  it  would  dance  aud  dazzle  as  through  a  crys- 
tal prism,  while  to  him  who  dwelt  in  the  temperate  zone  of  subdued 
and  sober,  yet  gladsome  feeling,  the  world  would  appear,  as  it  is,  some- 


ALUMNI   AND  GRAUUATING   Cl.A.Sa. 


thing  to  weep  over  and  rejoice  at,  with  liills  of  elevation  and  plains  of 
depression,  firm  gronnd  and  morasses,  arid  prospects  and  enchantu)g 
views — in  short  neither  all  good  nor  all  bad. 

There  is  one  feeling  of  disappointment,  which  every  yonng  man, 
who  exchanges  the  seclusion  of  a  college  for  the  bustle  and  business  of 
the  world,  is  bound  to  meet  and  endure.  He  finds  the  weapons  of  col- 
lege warfare  are  not  those  precisely  suited  to  collisions  with  men  in 
active  life.  His  Diploma,  for  which  he  so  long  labored,  and  for  VvMuch 
he  burned  the  midnight  lamp,  and  surrendered  so  many  hours,  which 
in  vain  allured  him  to  idleness  and  pleasure,  he  finds  entitles  him  to 
but  a  small  share  of  the  honor  and  consideration  of  the  world,  which 
he  had  fondly  anticipated.  He  comes  at  length  to  see  in  it  but  the  cer- 
tificate from  his  masters,  of  an  apprenticeship  honorably  ended,  author- 
izing him  to  commence  work  on  his  own  account.  His  classical  lore 
which  was  to  be  the  open  sesame  to  honor  and  consideration,  he  carries 
to  a  market  where  few  appreciate,  and  still  fewer  will  purchase.  His 
small  stock  of  literature  and  science,  which  he  has  collected  with  toil 
and  gloated  over  with  the  feelings  of  the  miser,  when  he  surveys  his 
hidden  gold,  is  converted  by  the  disenchanting  touch  of  the  world,  into 
rubbish  and  stone,  not  equal  to  the  purchase  of  one  '-'poor  penny's 
worth  of  bread."  He  finds  that  all  these  thinofs  have  no  exchangeable 
value,  though  his  after  experience  teaches  him,  that  they  are  not  with- 
out their  use.  The  mental  training  which  he  has  received  in  their  ac- 
quisition, has  imparted  powers  which  properly  exercised,  may  enable 
him  to  win  any  prize  which  he  may  choose  to  run  for  ;  as  the  exercise 
of  the  chase,  where  the  deer  or  the  boar  is  the  only  enemy,  may  so 
strengthen  the  thews  and  sinews,  so  nerve  the  courage,  and  so  sharpen 
the  sagacity,  as  to  qualify  the  votary,  for  the  more  severe  and  arduous 
duties  of  war.  ' 

Another  disappointment  every  young  scholar  feels  at  the  very 
first  touch  of  the  public  pulse.  The  pursuits  whicli  he  has  been 
taught  to  look  on  as  the  most  noble,  the  most  elevated,  and  the  most 
worthy  of  an  intelligent  being,  the  public  of  our  country  has  but  little 
sympathy  with.  There  is  no  Republic  of  letters  here.  Beyond  the 
outer  walls  of  our  universities  and  colleges,  there  is  but  little  venera- 
tion for  learning  or  the  learned.  The  Greek  and  Latin  which  we  took 
with  us  into  the  world,  I  appeal  to  you  my  friends,  has  it  not  perished 
for  lack  of  food  and  a  congenial  atmosphere  ?  Do  w^bringback  with 
us  to  day,  as  much   as  we  carried  away  from  this  pktce,  years  ago?— 


6  AN  ADDIlEtiS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 


Would  not  the  laconic  account  of  the  Bard  of  Avon's  learnnig  by  the 
nnmortal  lien  Johnson,  ''he  has  little  Latin  and  less  Greek,""  suit  each 
and  all  of  us  ?  The  sad  account  which  we  the  Alumni  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  North  Carolina  this  day  give  of  our  stewardship  over  the  talents 
entrusted  to  us  by  our  Alma  Mater,  will  find  an  echo  in  the  candid 
responses  of  the  Alumni  of  every  institution  within  our  wide  spread 
borders.  I  dare  pronounce  the  honest  thougli  grating  truth — grating 
to  our  pride  and  self  complacency,  that  the  soil  of  the  United  States 
has  not  proved  the  most  favorable  to  the  growth  of  literature.  This  is 
a  count  in  every  indictment  which  has  been  drawn  up  against  us  by 
the  English  press,  and  has  galled  us  the  more,  because  of  its  truth. — 
But  it  should  not  gall  us — non  omnia  possumus  omnes,  we  cannot 
do  every  thing,  or  be  every  thing.  It  is  glory  enough  for  us,  that  we 
have  formed  a  model  of  government  the  most  perfect  that  the  world 
has  ever  seen — have  in  an  unparalleled  short  space  of  time  extended 
the  empire  of  civilization  over  regions  uninhabited,  save  by  savage 
beasts  and  more  savage  men — have  bound  together  a  tract  of"  country 
three  thousand  miles  in  extent,  embracing  every  climate,  every  soil, 
and  every  language,  into  one  compact  mass  of  people,  with  one  feeling, 
one  interest,  and  hearts  all  bounding  at  the  same  watch  words  of  union 
and  liberty— have  dug  more  canals  and  made  more  rail  roads  than  all 
the  modern  civilized  world  together,  and  m  comparison  with  which  all 
that  Rome  in  her  palmiest  days  had  done,  dwindle  into  insignificance. 
Our  flag  floats  proudly  in  every  sea  and  is  respected  by  every  nation — 
we  liave  the  best  fed,  the  best  governed,  and  the  most  contented,  and 
happy  population  on  the  face  of  the  globe — our  manufactures  are  com- 
peting with  the  English  in  every  market — -we  taught  the  world  the  ap- 
plication of  steam  to  the  propelling  of  boats  on  the  water,  and  are 
every  day  sending  steam  engines  to  the  land  of  Bolton  and  "Watt — all 
this  and  more  we  have  accomplished  in  the  space  of  a  man's  life,  but  a 
day  in  the  lifetime  of  nations.  "What  disgrace  then  is  there  in  the  con- 
cession, that  we  are  not  a  literary  people — that  our  country  is  not  the 
realm  of  fancy— that  the  ornamental  arts  of  life — poetry,  painting, 
sculpture — are  not  indigenous  here  ?  Our  national  character  is  reflec- 
tive rather  than  imaginative — we  prefer  the  useful  to  the  beautiful — 
had  rather  minister  to  the  solid  happiness  of  the  great  mass,  than  cater 
for  the  refined  appetites  of  the  luxurious  few.  "Would  we  know  the 
cause  of  this?  seek  it  in  our  government,  m  the  character  of  the  age, 
the  period  of  our  birth  as  a  nation,  our  relations  with  other  countries  ; 


AI.VMNl  AND  (JRADUATIN'O  PT.AS.^. 


and  we  will  cca^3  to  bo  siiri)iispd  at  onr  present  literary  }ioverty,  or 
mortified  bv  the  prospect  before  us.  To  repine  at  tbe  literary  lame  oi 
other  nations,  or  to  be  jealous  of  it,  would  show  a  vanity  as  ridieulo\is 
as  that  of  the  great  French  Cardinal  who  not  content  with  the  charac- 
ter of  the  most  accomplished  statesman  of  his  time,  which  lie  was, 
would  be  what  natiu-c  never  intended  he  should  be,  a  gallant  and  a 
poet. 

But  I  must  invoke  your  attention  and  patience,  while  I  avail  my- 
self of  this  opportunity  to  dwell  with  more  minuteness,  on  the  causes 
which  have  hitherto  impeded,  some  of  which  will  probably  for  a  long- 
time to  come,  continue  to  impede,  our  progress  in  polite  literature  and 
the  fine  arts. 

That  our  country  has  as  yet  contributed  but  little  to  the  wealth  of 
the  great  Republic  of  letters,  may  be  taken  as  confessed.  We  have 
erected  no  monument  of  poetry  and  Ifave  perhaps  not  a  single  iso- 
lated statue  or  painting,  which  will  withstand  the  corosion  of  a  centu- 
ry. Of  the  long  list  of  our  authors  in  verse  and  prose,  liow  few, 
whose  names  do  not  sound  strangely,  in  the  ears,  even  of  our  reading 
public  ?  That  this  is  owing  to  any  mental  inferiority  of  oiu"  people,  in- 
volves a  sarcasm,  which  our  abundant  and  overwhelming  success  in 
other  departments  of  human  genius,  has  triumphantly  refuted.  Tlie 
deductions  of  the  crazed  philosopy,  which  taught  that  all  animals  de- 
generate in  the  Western  Hemisphere,  have  long  since,  been  abundantly 
disproved.  The  other  causes  assigned  for  it,  though  more  flattermg  to 
our  self  love,  are  not  more  true.  We  are  too  young,  it  is  said,  for  lit- 
erature— at  our  age  other  nations  had  done  nothing— we  had  a  wilder- 
ness to  subdue — wild  beasts  to  exterminate — savages  to  drive  from  our 
borders — the  means  of  living  to  provide,  and  capital  to  accumulate — 
in  a  word  that  America  like  every  other  country  must  be  material  be- 
fore she  can  be  ideal,  active  before  contemplative.  These  excuses  are 
more  specious  than  true.  Our  country  is  not  strictly  new.  Our 
fathers  came  from  the  most  civilized  nation  of  Europe.  They  brought 
with  them  the  literature  and  arts  of  England — were  the  inheritors  of 
the  glories  of  Locke,  Bacon,  and  Boyle,  of  Shakespear,  Dryden,  and 
Milton — were  the  children  of  fathers  who  had  waved  the  banner  of 
freedom  over  a  thousand  well  fought  fields,  and  sealed  with  their  hearts 
best  blood,  their  devotion  to  civil  and  religious  liberty.  But  there  is 
one  touch-stone  to  test  the  validity  of  this  plea  of  minority.  The  boy 
with  his  diminutive  figure  and  undeveloped  muscles,  is  not  expected 


8  AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 


to  have  (he  strength  of  a  man — but  from  his  daily  improvement  in  both 
of  these  particulars,  we  anticipate  with  some  degree  of  exactness  his 
future  strength  and  stature.  Compare  the  literary  stature  of  the  United 
States  now,  with  what  it  was  fifty  years  ago,  and  the  quantum  of  past 
growth  will  be  a  fair  measure  of  future  increase.  1  fear  this  test  will 
give  us  but  poor  encouragement.  We  have  more  writers  now — having 
more  readers  and  more  population — but  have  we  better?  '^l"'here  were 
more  classical  learning  and  more  ripe  scliolarship  in  the  first  Congress 
that  convened,  than  have  been  assembled  since  ;  Benjamin  West  is  still 
our  best  painter,  Benjamin  Franklin  our  greatest  philosopher,  and-- 
longo  intervallo — Joel  Barlow  our  best,  our  only  Epic  poet.  The 
philosophic  inquirer  must  probe  deeper  for  the  real  cause  of  our  stunted 
literary  growth,  though  in  probing,  he  should  wound,  or  even  sever, 
the  nerves  of  our  national  vanity. 

Some  of  the  influences  which  are  operating  injuriously  on  our 
own  literature,  are  by  no  means  common  to  us,  but  are  endemical 
among  all  nations.  Ever  since  the  French  revolution,  the  foundations 
of  the  great  deep  of  human  society  have  been  broken  up.  Individuals 
and  communities  have  been  busy  in  improving  their  physical  condi- 
tion. The  great  body  of  the  people  have  been  engaged  in  examining 
into  the  legality  of  the  pretensions  set  up  by  the  few,  the  more  favored 
classes  in  resisting  this  spirit  of  investigation,  so  hostile  to  their  power. 
In  the  midst  of  such  a  hurlyburly  of  interest  and  passion,  the  dreams 
of  the  poet  have  been  disturbed,  the  contemplations  of  the  philosopher 
broken  in  upon,  and  the  imagination  drawn  down  from  its  airy  heights, 
to  realities  more  attractive  than  its  own  visions.  Physical  man  has  been 
exalted,  the  intellectual  depressed.  Mind  has  triumphed  over  matter 
it  is  true,  but  it  is  the  triumph  of  the  slave ;  for  the  body  puts  forth  its 
hands  and  enjoys  all  the  spoils  of  its  richest  conquests.  The  loco- 
motive as  it  whistles  by  us,  is  but  wings  to  the  body,  breaking  up  space, 
and  imparting  to  it  the  ubiquity,  so  long  the  proud  prerogative  of  mind. 
Philosophy  years  ago,  but  the  toy  of  the  mind,  the  dreamer's  plaything, 
is  now  the  poor  servant  of  commerce,  which  feeds  and  clothes  our  bo- 
dies ;  and  Chemistry,  once  the  transmuter  of  every  mean  thing  which 
it  touched,  into  glitteruig  gold,  is  now  a  scullion  of  the  kitchen,  serv- 
ing the  body's  basest  uses.  Is  it  strange  then,  that  in  an  age  so  physi- 
cal, so  utilitarian,  when  the  comforts  of  the  body  are  so  intensely 
thought  of.  that  the  gratifications  of  the  mind  should  cease  to  attract 
our  thoughts  and  divide  our  cares ;  that  science  should  flourish  and 


ALUiMNI   AND  ORADUATlNCi   CLASS. 


polite  literature  dwindle,  that  reason  should  bcexaited  and  imn'^inaliou 
decay?  Such  is  the  fact.  While  civilization  is  every  where  triumph- 
ing, and  science  is  smoothing  the  M'ay  lor  the  growth  and  extension  of 
all  the  arts  of  life,  imagination  is  constantly  and  in  the  same  pro{)or- 
tion,  losing  its  sway  over  its  old  domains  of  poetry  and  its  sister  arts. 
Whether  reason  and  imaijination  are  two  hostile  sovcrcisfns,  who  can 
not  brook  the  rivalship  of  a  divided  reign,  or  v»'hose  sway  will  be  kind- 
est, gentlest,  best,  are  questi(>ns  which  each  will  answer  in  accordance 
with  his  ovvai  peculiar  temper,  and  habits  of  feeling  and  thought. 

Every  created  thing,  even  at  the  moment  when  it  bounds  into  ex- 
istence, has  within  it  the  germ  of  its  future  character  and  destiny.-— 
It  is  the  peculiarity  of  our  country,  a  peculiarity  which  forbids  a  com- 
parison with  other  nations,  that  it  has  not  passed  through  the  lingering, 
yet  interesting  periods  of  infancy  and  childhood.  W^e  sprang,  like 
Minerva  from  the  brain  of  Jupiter,  fully  grown  and  fully  armed. — 
The  shadowy  forms  and  dim  recollections  of  childhood,  its  infantile 
associations  and  superstitions,  and  '' the  story  telling  glen  and  fonnt 
and  brook"  the  very  woof  and  warp  of  poetry  and  romance,  are  all 
wanting  to  us.  Tradition  which  so  delightfully  beguiles  other  nations 
with  its  marvels,  stands  here  rebuked  into  silence  under  the  cold  unsym- 
pathising  eye  of  history.  We  see  our  pilgrim  fathers  touch  the  rock 
at  Plymouth,  we  trace  them  in  all  their  journeyings  through  the  wil- 
derness, every  incident  is  an  item  of  history,  and  combined,  a  wonder- 
ful history  they  make, 'but  not  a  perch  is  offered  for  imagination  to  rest 
her  weary  wings,  as  she  flies  around  our  land.  We  have  no  heroic 
age,  when  men  were  heroes,  and  heroes  gods,  no  monuments  of  anti- 
quity, no  relics  of  superstition,  casting  their  dim  shadows  on  the  mind 
and  infusing  into  the  imagination  a  lively  sympathy  with  departed  age, 
and  a  half  belief  in  its  traditionary  marvels.  Take  from  Greece  and 
Rome  their  gods  and  demi-gods,  their  superstition,  their  fabulous  origin  ; 
in  fine,  take  from  them  all  that  we  have  not,  and  the  world  would  not 
be  astonished  and  delighted  by  those  splendid  creations  of  genius  which 
are  at  once  monuments  and  models  of  taste  and  of  beauty.  Without 
a  mythology  there  would  have  been  no  such  poet  as  Homer,  no  paint- 
ers like  Zeuais  and  Parrhasius,  sculpture  could  not  boast  of  its  Phi- 
dias or  Praxiteles,  the  drama  its  Sophocles  or  Euripides,  nor  possibly 
eloquence  a  Demosthenes. 

It  is  true  that  modern  Italy  far  removed  from  these  glorious  times, 
has  rejoiced  for  a  brief  period,  in  a  revival  of  the  arts  and  literature 
3 


10  AN  ADDREasi  DELIVERED  BEFORE  TtlE 


which  made  tlie  "  eternal  city''  famous.  Christianity  was  to  it,  what 
mytholoo;y  was  to  ancient  Home.  Monkish  fraud  and  popular  super- 
stition had  converted  the  hoHest  truths  of  revelation  into  the  most  ri- 
diculous fables,  and  God  became  the  Jupiter,  the  saints  the  demi-gods,. 
and  the  martyrs  the  heroes  of  the  modern  religion.  The  Deity  was 
not  a  spirit,  nor  was  his  worship  spn-itual,  nor  can  any  one  of  proper 
religious  feeling  contemplate  the  paintings  or  read  the  poetry  of  this 
period,  without  experiencing  in  the  impiety  of  the  authors,  a  conside- 
rable drawback  on  his  delight  and  admiration.  The  conclusion  is, 
that  much  of  Grecian  and  Roman  celebrity  is  due  to  a  false  religion, 
and  of  modern  Italian,  to  a  corrupt  one. 

Our  relations  with  England  are  unfavorable  to  that  originality  of 
effort  which  alone  constitutes  Genius  in  literature  and  the  fine  arts. — 
Our  position  dooms  us  to  the  humble  office  of  copyists.  The  child 
always  looks  up  to  the  parent  with  sentiments  of  exaggerated  respect, 
aad  parental  precept,  parental  example,  and  parental  influence,  bear 
with  a  weight,  which  reason  and  judgment  in  vaiii  attempt  to  shake 
off.  We  are  the  offspring  of  England  ;  speak  the  same  language,  read 
the  same  books,  have  the  same  prejudices,  boast  of  the  same  excellen- 
cies, and  bear  a  striking  resemblance  in  every  national  feature.  Our 
coiiimercial  relations  are  most  intimate,  and  our  mutual  feelings  of 
good  will,  with  the  exception  of  an  occasional  "  flare  up,"  most  cor- 
dial. Add  to  this  the  wealth  and  the  power  of  England,  her  com- 
manding position  as  the  centre  of  modern  civilization,  her  military 
glory,  her  freedom,  her  genius  vindicated  by  her  successes  in  every 
department  of  human  enterprise  ;  her  brilliant  host  of  orators,  states- 
men, and  poets,  her  learning,  her  religion,  and  need  we  wonder  at  our 
laying  claim  to  kindred  with  such  a  nation,  and  making  a  model  of  so 
much  moral  and  intellectual  excellence?  Nations  like  individuals  are 
their  own  copyists.  Genius  treads  over  and  over  again  the  path  which 
its  own  hands  have  cleared,  and  a  mine  once  opened  is  worked,  till  the 
last  ore  is  exhausted.  No  language  living  or  dead  boasts  of  more  than 
one  epic,  though  in  each  there  are  many  copies.  The  human  mind 
unconscious  of  its  own  power,  cowers  in  the  presence  of  a  master,  feels 
the  effort  to  excel  what  it  has  been  taught  to  deem  perfect  as  presump- 
tuous, and  seeks  some  new  field  of  labor  or  as  more  frequently  hap- 
pens, sinks  the  boldness  of  invention  into  the  drudgery  of  imitation.— 
The  English  literature  of  the  present  age  gives  abundant  illustration 
of  this  fact.     The  teeming  press  is  busy  m  throwing  off  copies  of'  the 


ALI'MNI  AND  GUAnUAT ING  CLASS.  11 


masters  of  n  former  age.  The  multitLide  of  novels  and  romances 
which  every  year  brings  before  ns,  are  but  the  copies  of  a  copy,  the 
shadow  of  a  shade  :  and  the  drama,  and  every  day  brings  furtli  a  new 
one,  is  Shakespeare  in  a  thousand  dresses.  The  literature  of  modern 
nations  is  like  the  magnificent  feast  given  to  Pompey  the  Great,  by  his 
host  of  Epirus  :  the  table  groaned  under  the  weight  of  a  niultitude  of 
dishes,  yet  when  critically  tasted,  they  were  all  found  to  contain  the 
same  ingredient — poik  in  a  thousand  forms.  A  dozen  originals  and  a 
thousand  copies,  constitute  t!ie  literature  of  the  most  polished  of  mod- 
ern nations.  Take  from  England,  Shakespeare,  and  Milton,  and  Dry- 
den  and  Pope,  and  her  glory  is  eclipsed  :  she  could  better  spare  a  hun- 
dred of  her  ephemeral  authors,  who  show  themselves  on  the  literary 
stage,  command  applause  for  a  moment,  and  then  disappear  forever. 

To  ensure  a  high  standing  in  literature  and  the  fine  arts,  a  nation 
must  have  originals,  beautiful  reflectors  of  universal  nature,  which 
will  please  all  men  in  all  ages— a  single  one  of  which  our  country  has 
not  yet,  and  will  never  have,  till  we  reach  that  proud  elevation  which 
will  enable  us  to  give  to,  more  than  we  receive  from  England  :  when, 
in  a  word,  we  shall  be  tlie  planet  and  she  the  sattellite. 

Bat,  gentlemen,  powerful  as  are  the  influences  of  tiie  causes  which 
I  have  thus  concisely  glanced  at,  over  the  literary  prospects  of  our 
country,  there  are  others  connected  with  the  very  frame-work  of  our 
political  institutions,  which  can  not  be  overlooked.  Most  of  the  nice 
shades  which  mark  the  difterences  in  tlie  tastes  of  nations,  as  well  as 
the  broad  lines  which  distinguish  and  divide  their  variant  social  sys- 
tems, are  all  owing  in  a  great  degree  to  peculiarities  in  their  Govern- 
ments. It  is  not  only  the  province  of  political  institutions  to  restrain 
the  passions,  to  protect  the  weak,  and  to  establish  justice,  but  they 
mount  higher,  and  seize  on  the  affections,  direct  the  imagination,  and 
control  the  taste.  The  American  democracy  has  no  prototype  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  The  petty  States  of  Greece,  with  Governments 
compounded  of  the  wildest  license  and  the  most  cruel  oppression, 
of  anarchy  and  aristocracy,        '  •'.'    '         '  .-^'- •.  •..' 

"  Where  men 
:   ■        ■  All,  but  a  few,  were  bouglit  and  sokl  and  scourged 

And  killed,  as  interest  or  caprice  enjoined,"'  -    ..-. 

bear  no  resemblance  to  our  glorious  system  but  in  name — as  much 
alike,  as  a  "  horse  chesnut  and  a  chesnut  horse."  Ours  is  a  represent- 
ative Government^  in  which  the  voice  of  the  people  is  heard  through 


12  AN  ADDRKSS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 


their  agents— theirs,  a  Government,  it  Government  it  could  be  called, 
where  a  few,  and  they  the  lowest  and  most  degraded  of  the  population, 
spoke  in  their  own  right ;  calling  tiicmsclves,  not  the  representatives  of 
the  people,  but  the  p:ople  themselves.  Ours  is  the  lirst  representative 
democracy  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  The  honor  of  first  reducing 
to  successful  practice  what  was  before  deemed  a  Utopian  dream,  and 
of  demonstrating  that  the  people  themselves  are  their  best  rulers,  is  all 
our  own.  We  alone  have  ciuried  out  the  great  Cliurch  relorm  whicii 
Martin  Luther  commenced,  by  breaking  up  the  unholy  connexion  be- 
tween the  priest  and  the  politician — we  alone  have  no  aristocracy  but 
what  God  and  man's  own  merit  Iiave  made—  have  no  armed  soldiery 
to  imbrue  their  hands  in  the  blood  of  their  brethren — no  sinecures — 
no  bloated  wealth — no  squalid  poverty.  If  all  this  be  the  fruit  of  our 
democracy,  and  it  can  be  further  shown,  that  this  same  democracy  has 
drawn  around  our  hearths  every  domestic  virtue,  surrounded  our  altars 
with  piety,  given  wisdom  and  dignity  to  our  public  councils,  patriot- 
ism to  our  rulers,  and  valor  to  our  soldiers,  need  wc  fear  the  acknow- 
ledgement if  truth  shonld  require  it,  that  it  does  not  foster  those  lighter 
and  more  graceful  accomplishments  which  it  is  our  boast  to  have  over- 
thrown? Having  rejected  a  court  with  its  vices  audits  oppressions, 
why  look  to  its  reiinements?  Having  turned  our  backs  on  Egypt  and 
its  chains,  why  sigh  after  its  tlesh-pots  and  its  luxuries? 
.  ■  Political  equality  is  the  great  characteristic  of  democracy,  legibly 
stamped  on  its  outward  features,  while  its  inward  spirit  is  universal 
equality.  European  nations  have  their  nobility,  their  gentry,  their 
peasantry  :  their  literary,  tlieir  scientific  and  their  fashionable  circles, 
each  separate  and  distinct.  Democracy  breaks  down  all  such  divid- 
ing barriers.  Society  here,  can  not  be  represented  by  a  pyramid  or 
cone,  but  a  plain,  and  before  an  individual  can  rise,  he,  must  first  raise 
the  plain  on  which  the  feet  of  the  whole  community  are  planted  ;  for 
each  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  whole  mass,  which  a  member  of 
European  society  bears  to  his  class.  Every  ambitious  individual  strug- 
gles to  obtain  the  applause  of  the  Society  to  which  he  is  attached.  The 
author  writes  for  the  applause  of  the  literary  circle,  the  painter  courts 
the  approbation  and  patronage  of  the  lovers  of  art,  and"  the  orator  ad- 
dresses himself  to  the  tastes  and  passions  of  the  holders  of  political 
power  ;  while  in  a  country  like  ours,  where  all  classes  are  blended  in 
one,  ambition  woos  the  smiles  of  the  majority.  Genius  grasps  at  uni- 
versal applause  and  strives  to  please  the  universal  taste.     Tlie  taste  of 


ALUMM  AND  CillADUATING  Cl.AHS.  13 


the  mnjorit}'  here  nor  no  where  else,  can  sympathise  with  the  worship  of 
the  muses,  nor  with  the  contemplation,  the  solitude,  the  passionless  co;i- 
sideratio  naturic,  whicli  gave  to  tlie  ancient  philosophy  such  charms. 
They  are  too  passive,  too  contemplative,  too  elherial  for  the  gross  be- 
ings who  constitute  the  mass.  Their  taste  is  more  for  tlie  useful  than 
the  beautiful- — for  them  a  fine  ship  has  more  attractions  than  the  dome 
of  St.  Peters',  and  the  Patent  Office  is  richer  in  the  creations  of  genius, 
than  the  Sistine  Chapel  or  the  Galeries  of  Florence. 

Another  circumstance  operates  injuriously  on  the  growth  and  dif- 
fusion of  letters  in  our  country.  "We  have  no  great  capital  like  Lon- 
don, or  Paris,  or  Vienna,  to  serve  as  a  meeting  point  for  all  the  learned 
of  the  country,  enabling  them  to  concentrate  science  and  taste,  and  ex- 
tend their  influence  through  the  means  of  National  Academies  and 
Royal  Societies.  The  seat  of  our  Federal  Government  is  a  petty 
town,  with  a  small  population  and  still  smaller  resources,  and  the  resi- 
dence of  a  sovereignty  so  limited,  that  it  has  not  the  power  to  establish 
or  endow  a  University,  or  to  appropriate  the  smallest  sum  for  the  en- 
couragement of  science  or  the  fine  arts.  All  the  power  of  the  nation 
for  these  noble  and  benificent  purposes  is  divided  and  frittered  away 
among  twenty-six  sovereignties,  who  are  unable  or  unwilling  to  appro- 
priate the  means  necessary  to  give  to  literature  and  the  ornamental 
arts,  that  commanding  influence  which  they  would  exert  under  more 
favorable  auspices.  Without  more  concentration  of  effort,  but  little 
can  be  effected,  and  this  the  character  of  our  political  institutions  for- 
bids. Centralization,  so  inimical  to  liberty,  is  indispensable  to  the 
growth  of  letters,  and  adds  another  to  the  thousand  instances,  all  serv- 
ing to  demonstrate  the  inability  of  man  to  form  a  system  of  Govern- 
ment, that  will  protect  every  interest  and  foster  every  improvement. — 
His  whole  life  is  but  a  series  of  compromises,  in  which  he  sacrifices 
the  beautiful  to  the  useful,  elegant  enjoyments  to  homely  comforts, 
and  the  refinements  of  the  few  to  the  necessities  of  the  many.  Tlie 
Utopian  dreams  of  a  speculative  philosophy,  must  first  be  realized,  be- 
fore he  can  hope  to  see  all  of  these  benefits  flow  from  the  same  Go- 
vernment. 

As  an  indemnity,  however,  for  the  absence  of  these  great  and  ac- 
knowledged advantages,  so  highly  prized  by  the  literary  man  and  the 
virtuoso,  we  have  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  all  the  usefiil  arts  of  life 
brought  to  the  highest  perfection — practical  science  cultivated  by  all 
classes,  and  unlocking  her  secrets,  not  to  the  idle  importunities  of  here 


14  AN  ADDR-ESf?  DRLTVERED  BEFORE  THE 


and  there  a  solitary  votary,  bnt  opening  lier  vast  store-house  of  wonders 
and  blessings,  to  the  gaze  and  enjoyment  of  all.  A  new  idea  in  practi- 
cal philosophy,  or  a  new  improvement  in  art,  does  not  here  as  else- 
where, commence  with  the  tirst  class  of  society,  the  apex  of  the  cone, 
and  percolate  slowly  till  it  is  brought  by  gravity  within  the  reacli  of 
the  mass  below,  but  it  passes  with  the  rapidity  of  lightning  through 
the  whole  body  of  the  people,  and  before  a  single  one  can  sny  it  is 
mine,  it  is  in  the  possession  of  all.  The  whole  people  march  on  to- 
gether, and  have  tlie  same  tastes,  the  same  prejudices,  and  the  same 
character.  To  estimate  the  merits  of  such  a  people,  we  should  not 
select  individuals  as  samples,  but  look  on  them  in  the  aggregate.  We 
have  no  Mont  Blancs  nor  Chimborazos,  with  towering  tops,  to  attract 
the  gaze  of  the  world,  but  our  country  is  based  on  the  most  elevated 
plain  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  We  present  the  mighty  spectacle  of  a 
whole  population  lifted  up;  not  indeed  to  the  airy  heights  of  imagina- 
tion and  taste,  but  to  the  genial  elevation,  of  a  sound  morality,  and  a 
practical  philosophy  ;  and  this  effected  by  the  mighty  lever  of  Demo- 
cracy. Frigid  indeed  must  be  that  man"s  philosophy  and  harder  than 
adamant  his  heart,  who  would  purchase  for  his  country,  high  literary 
renown  at  the  expense  of  the  mass  of  that  country's  citizens,  and  found 
an  emporium  of  fine  arts,  on  an  ignorant  and  degraded  popnlation  ! 
And  yet  such  is  the  philosopliy  of  Kings  and  aristocrats  all  the 
world  over. 

But,  gentlemen,  before  dismissing  this  subject,  I  must  refer  you  to 
one  branch  of  the  fine  arts,  which  it  is  thought  the  peculiar  province 
of  freedom  to  foster.  I  allude  to  the  sister  of  poetry — eloquence.  De- 
mocracy has  been  ever  looked  on  as  the  cradle  of  eloquence ;  and 
while  I  have  no  disposition  to  call  into  question  so  respectable  a  truism, 
yet  it  would  be  well  for  us,  before  drawing  from  it  too  favorable  an  au- 
gury, to  remember  that  the  democracy  of  the  United  States  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  that  of  Greece  or  Rome.  We  have  a  territory  so 
extensive,  and  a  population  so  large,  that  but  a  small  portion  of  our 
people  can  assemble  at  one  place — our  public  affairs  are  conducted  by 
the  representatives  of  the  people,  and  not  the  people  themselves- — we 
have  Constitutions  which  bind  our  representatives,  and  confine  them 
within  a  very  narrow  range.  The  Grecian  States  had  no  Constitutions 
nor  representatives,  and  the  people  could  be  easily  assembled,  and  their 
decisions  were  prompt  and  final — circumstances  all  favorable  to  the 
purposes  of  the  orator.     Tlie  character  of  the  populace,  too,  was  just 


ALUMNI  AND  GRADUATING  CLASS.  15 


such  as  to  bring  it  under  the  influence  of  eloquence — fickle,  passionate, 
enterprising,  rash,  and  unreflecting.  The  Prince  of  Orators,  when  in 
the  presence  of  such  an  assemljly  he  launched  his  thunder  against  the 
ambition  and  tyranny  of  the  Macedonian  King,  was  net  greeted  with 
the  usual  testimonials  of  applause— shouts  and  acclamations — but  the 
deep-mouthed  response,  amid  the  clangor  of  arms,  "let  us  march 
against  Phihp."  Eloquence  could  produce  no  such  thrilling  effect 
on  an  American  assembly.  The  power  of  the  orator  is  weakened  by 
tlie  genius  of  our  institutions,  which  is  singularly  cool,  dispassionate 
and  reflecting.  Our  people  are  so  slow  in  passing  from  conception  to 
execution,  and  tiiere  is  so  much  delay,  so  mucli  consultation,  and  so 
many  constitutional  impediments,  that  the  passions  excited  by  the  art 
of  the  speaker  evaporate,  and  reason  has  time  to  resume  the  helm,  from 
which  she  had  been  for  a  moment  driven. 

In  our  legislative  assemblies,  two  causes  exert  a  depressing  effect 
on  their  eloquence — tiie  duty  of  obedience  to  the  constituent  body,  and 
the  spirit  of  party.  The  one  takes  away  the  will  on  which  it  is  the 
province  of  eloquence  to  act :  the  other,  narrows  the  heart  and  deadens 
those  emotions,  in  the  absence  of  which  there  can  be  no  sympathy  with 
magnanimity,  virtue,  or  Jionor. 

The  art  of  printing,  in  every  other  respect  so  fruitful  of  blessings, 
has  acted  injuriously  on  the  eloquence  of  the  present  age.  Such  is  the 
rapidity  with  which  copies  of  a  speech  are  multiplied,  and  such  the  ve- 
locity with  which  they  fly  to  the  most  distant  parts  of  our  country, 
that  the  orator  does  not  so  much  address  the  small  assembly  which 
sees  and  hears  him,  as  the  country  at  large ;  nor  does  he  so  mucli 
adapt  himself  to  the  excited  feelings  of  a  crowd,  which  sympathise  with 
every  tone  and  every  gesture  of  the  speaker,  as  to  the  calm  reason  of 
men  who  read  and  weigh  in  solitude.  The  three  approved  weapons 
of  ancient  eloquence, — action,  action,  action — are  discarded  for  the 
more  potent  engines — fact,  argument  and  reason.  Any  eftbrt  to  rouse 
the  passions,  or  touch  the  heart,  at  once  excites  jealousy  and  distrust. 
Liberty  and  patriotism  are  no  longer  sentiments,  at  the  bare  mention 
of  which,  the  heart  vibrates  along  every  chord,  but  things  to  be  rea- 
soned of,  weighed,  measuied,  and  calculated,  with  the  same  coolness 
that  we  estimate  the  blessings  of  steam,  or  the  value  of  the  spinning 
jenny.  Hence  the  speeclies  of  the  present  day  are  didactic,  argumen- 
tative; and  statistical ;  but  sadly  wanting  in  fervor,  pathos  and  ve- 
hemence. ■    >.  -.  ♦ 


16  AN  ADDRRSS  DELIVKRED  BEFORE  THE 


These  views  are  not  presented  for  the  purpose  of  disparaging-  the 
eloquence  of  America,  but  to  warn  us  against  expecting'  from  our  de- 
mocratic institutions,  tiiat  rich  and  overflowing  harvest,  which  was 
reaped  in  '-the  fierce  democracies"  of  Greece.  Our  institutions,  as 
schools  of  political  eloquence,  are  inferior  to  the  ancient  Republics, 
but  equal  to  those  of  England,  and  superior  to  all  the  other  monarchies 
of  Europe.  Our  success  is  just  equal  to  these  advantages.  AVhile  we 
Imve  no  names  to  compare  with  the  great  masters  of  Grecian  and  Ro- 
man eloquence,  yet  none  others  living  or  dead  but  will  find  their  par- 
allel in  our  brief  annals.  The  commanding  energy  of  a  Chatham,  is 
equalled  by  our  Henry,  while  the  deep  philosopliy  and  gorgeous  elocu- 
tion of  Burke,  fmd  their  counterpart  in  our  Pinckney.  Living  orators 
of  our  own  country  could  be  named,  if  it  were  not  invidious,  who 
might  proudly  challenge  a  comparison  with  the  most  eminent  of 
the  age. 

In  pulpit  eloquence,  we  have  as  yet,  gathered  no  laurels.  In  the 
midst  of  a  host  of  learned  and  sound  theologians,  there  is  no  radiant 
gem  of  eloquence.  Channing  may  constitute  an  exception  ;  he  is  co- 
pious, fluent,  and  elegant,  but  too  cold  and  artificial,  to  rank  with  the 
great  models  of  France,  or  the  comparatively  inferior  ones,  of  Eng- 
land. How  much  soever  the  efforts  of  Martin  Luther  and  his  follow- 
ers may  have  purified  our  religion,  it  must  be  confessed,  tliat  in  rid- 
ding our  churches  of  their  ornaments,  they  have  robbed  our  pulpits  of 
their  flowers.  Catholic  countries,  are  with  few  exceptions,  superior  to 
their  protestant  neighbors,  in  the  eloquence  of  the  pulpit.  VVhother 
this  is  the  result  of  fortuitous  coincidence,  or  owing  to  the  greater  ma- 
teriality of  the  catholic  faith,  compared  with  the  spirituality  of  protes- 
tantism, which  gives  a  stronger  hold  on  the  imagination  of  the  people, 
and  offers  by  this  means  a  greater  range  to  the  fancy  of  the  preacher, 
would  involve  considerations,  which  I  have  not  the  time  to  enter  on 
nor  you  the  patience  to  listen  to.  I  will  content  myself  with  the  re- 
mark, that  the  eloquence  of  the  pulpit  depends  more  on  the  forms  of 
the  church  and  the  character  of  the  iaith  which  it  inculcates,  than  on 
the  political  institutions  of  a  country. 

The  views,  Gentlemen,  which  I  have  thus  concisely  offered  for 
your  consideration,  are  not,  I  know,  such  as  are  deemed  best  calculat- 
ed to  find  favor  with  an  American  auditory.  But  1  place  far  loo  high 
an  estimate  on  the  candor  and  intelligence  of  the  Alumni  of  this  Uni- 
versity, to  imagine  for  a  moment,  that  their  patriotism,  or  their  taste. 


ALUMNI  AND  GRADUATING  CLASS.  17 


would  be  gratified  by  a  fulsome  i)anegyrick,  or  indiscriminate  praise 
of  our  institutions.  Our  government  and  people  have  enough  of  real 
excellence,  to  enlist  our  pride  and  our  affections,  without  rendering  it 
necessary,  to  robe  ourselves  in  fancied  perfections,  or  to  risk  the  ridi- 
cule which  is  always  provoked  by  lofty,  but  unfounded  pretension.— 
The  language  of  flattery  has  been  heard  long  enough — Europe  nause- 
ates, and  America  at  last  begins  to  sicken.  ^Ve  have  lived  too  lonsr  on 
the  glories  of  the  dead,  and  dwelt  too  much  on  the  contemplations  of 
the  past.  Let  us  look  forward,  that  our  posterity  may  not  be  asliamed 
to  look  back.  The  whole  civilized  world  is  in  motion,  earnestly  striv- 
ing in  the  race  of  improvement.  Old  countries  animated  by  the  spirit 
of  the  age,  are  throwing  oil  their  lethargy,  and  are  manifesting  a  de- 
gree of  activity  and  enterpiise,  which  we  have  flattered  ourselves,  was 
all  our  own.  England  during  the  last  thirty  years,  has  doubled  her 
population,  and  quadrupled  all  her  resources  of  strength,  of  com- 
fort, and  of  happiness.  From  the  icy  mountains  of  Siberia,  to  the 
sunny  plains  of  Egypt,  the  spirit  of  improvement,  is  moving  on  the 
face  of  the  water  and  the  land.  On  our  altars  was  the  sacred  fire  first 
landled,  and  may  our  people  stand  among  the  nations,  as  did  the  tribe 
of  Levi  among  the  people  of  God,  distinguished  by  the  high  and  pe- 
culiar honor,  of  furnishing  a  priesthood,  to  feed  the  holy  flame  and 
keep  it  burning  forever ! 

That  part  of  the  United  States,  gentlemen,  which  we  inhabit,  needs 
awakening.  The  South  is  too  supine.  While  the  North  and  the 
West  are  pursuing  with  vigor  the  path  which  their  high  destiny  is 
pointing  out  to  them,  and  wooing  every  breeze  which  may  waft  them 
onwards,  we  have  cast  anchor,  and  are  amusing  ourselves  with  con- 
juring up  phantoms  of  a  past  age,  discussing  the  principles  of  a  depart- 
ed race  of  politicians,  and  idly  talking  of  bringing  back  the  Govern- 
ment to  its  old  republican  tack ;  as  if  any  Government  ever  did  or  ever 
can  go  backwards.  The  political  institutions  of  a  country,  may  be 
wrecked  on  the  rocks  of  faction,  or  engulphed  in  a  vortex  of  effemina- 
cy or  vice,  may  fall  from  too  much  weakness  or  too  much  weight,  yet 
it  is  certain,  that  no  nation  was  ever  rescued  from  a  danger  before  it, 
by  an  attempt  to  recede,  or  ever  found  a  grave  near  the  spot  where  it 
was  rocked  in  its  cradle.  It  is  high  lime  that  the  South  was  giving  up 
its  old  prejudices  and  antiquated  modes  of  thinking — that  it  was 
breaking  the  ties  which  unite  it  to  a  departed  age,  and  bind  together 

the  living  and  the  dead.     Our  ancestors  used  the  lights  of  their  age. 
3 


18  AN  ADDRESS  DRLIVERED  BEFORE  THE 


why  should  we  reject  the  brigliter  ones  of  our  own  ?  They  ran  a-head 
of  their  times,  why  should  we  lag  behind  ours?  They  were  dissatis- 
fied with  their  condition,  and  improved  it,  let  us  do  likewise ;  they 
were  wise  in  their  generation,  let  us  be  wise  in  ours.  We  should  imi- 
tate, but  not  ape  our  fathers.  It  is  not  so  much  their  improvements, 
that  we  should  adopt,  as  their  spirit  of  improvement ;  not  so  much  their 
thoughts,  as  their  modes  of  thinking.  Many  of  our  Alumni,  are  mem- 
bers of  Legislative  bodies,  and  their  position  is  one  of  great  power,  and 
great  responsibility.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  they  will  give  an  impulse 
to  that  spirit  in  North  Carolina  and  Virginia,  which  is  effecting  such 
wonders  in  other  parts  of  our  country.  They  must  have  strangely 
foro-otten  the  early  lessons  of  their  youth,  if  tiiey  do  not  war  on  the  ig- 
norance of  the  land,  and  cherish  that  greatest  of  all  systems  of  internal 
improvement,  which  takes  under  its  charge,  the  heads  and  hearts  of 
the  people.  The  claims  of  the  poor,  who  are  stretching  forth  their 
hands  for  what  is  far  more  valuable  than  bread,  can  no  longer  be  safely 
disregarded.  In  a  Despotism  the  youthful  heir  to  the  throne  is  care- 
fully educated,  is  put  under  the  charge  of  the  wisest  and  best  men  of 
the  nation,  who  fill  his  tender  mind,  with  lessons  of  political  wisdom, 
and  instill  into  his  heart,  the  precepts  of  virtue  and  religion.  The 
children  of  America  are  its  future  sovereigns,  its  destiny  will  soon  be 
in  their  keeping,  and  yet  we  are  content  to  place  no  restraint  on  their 
vices,  and  give  no  illumination  to  their  minds.  The  parent  who  re- 
fuses to  his  child  the  advantages  of  education  is  justly  looked  on  as  a 
monster  of  folly  or  wickedness,  and  often  by  the  very  men  who  refuse 
all  legislative  aid  to  the  cause  of  popular  education. 

We  read  with  horror,  of  the  descent  of  the  savage  hordes  of  Goths 
and  Vandals,  on  the  fair  plains  of  France  and  Italy,  overturning  in 
their  wild  career,  all  the  boasted  monuments  of  Roman  civilization, 
and  prostrating  in  the  dust,  whatever  of  law,  religion,  and  learning, 
there  remained  of  a  past  age.  We  it  is  true,  have  no  such  enemies 
hanging  on  our  frontiers,  but  let  our  population  become  dense  and 
crowded,  as  it  must  in  a  short  time,  and  let  us  continue  to  neglect  as 
we  have  done,  that  cheap  defence  of  nations,  popular  education,  and 
we  shall  have  barbarians  to  encounter,  as  ignorant,  as  lawless,  and  as 
savage,  as  the  great  northern  hive  ever  sent  forth,  on  an  expedition  of 
rapine  and  plunder.  Our  populous  towns,  will  empty  the  filthy  con- 
tents of  their  streets  and  cellars,  on  our  ballot  boxes.  The  charter 
which  now  secures  our  property  from  encroachmentj  and  our. persons 


ALUMNI  AND  GRADUATING  CLASS!.  19 


from  violation,  will  be  invaded,  aiid  our  beautiful  system  of  order,  jus- 
tice, and  equal  rights,  will  fall  into  ruin,  to  escape  from  wiiich  we  will 
embrace  despotism  in  despair  :  and  thus  rival  the  imbecility  of  tlie  fool, 
who  in  the  confusion  of  a  sinking  ship,  seized  on  an  anchor,  that  ho 
might  ride  in  safety  to  the  shore.  We  should  make  timely  provision 
against  such  a  calamity.  A  safe  and  easy  mode  of  escape  lies  open  be- 
fore us.  Educate  the  rising  generation,  and  all  will  be  well.  Here  is 
a  case,  in  which  an  enlightened  self-love,  pleads  tlie  cause  of  philan- 
thropy. Not  only  charily,  but  pecuniary  interest  impels  us.  To  edu- 
cate the  poor  is  to  convert  idle  consumers  into  active  producers,  and  I 
have  not  a  doubt,  but  in  the  long  run,  besides  adding  to  the  taxable 
wealth  of  the  Slate,  that  it  would  save  the  full  cost,  in  diminished  ap- 
propriations under  our  present  system  of  poor  laws.  The  well  educa- 
ted are  rarely  poor  enough  to  solicit  the  bounty  of  the  Slate,  or  the 
charity  of  individuals.  Let  us  then,  gentlemen,  liere  in  the  presence 
of  our  Alma  Mater,  under  the  eyes  of  our  old  instructors,  and  in  the 
face  of  this  large  and  respectable  audience,  resolve,  each  within  the 
sphere  in  which  his  destiny  may  be  cast,  to  exert  every  power  of  his 
mind  and  all  the  influence  of  his  station,  whether  ])ublic  or  private,  to 
extend  the  blessings  of  education,  to  every  tenant,  of  every  hamlet, 
within  our  borders.  Then  we  will  bear  some  resemblance  to  the  pic- 
ture which  our  vanity  has  drawn,  and  be  indeed  and  in  truth,  the  most 
enlightened,  the  most  powerful,  and  the  best  governed  people,  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.      -.  ,         ^ -.  . 

GentleiMen  of  the  Graduating  Class:  ■      .      ^  •■ 

You  will  soon  be  emancipated  from  College  rules  and 
enter  on  a  new  and  untried  scene.  Commencing  life  has  been  aptly 
compared  to  launching  a  boat  on  the  waters  of  the  ocean.  There  is, 
however,  this  striking  difference.  The  mariner  in  passing  wide 
wastes  of  unknown  waters,  is  provided  with  a  compass  to  direct  his 
course,  and  a  chart  to  inform  him  of  the  nature  of  the  coast  which  he 
approaches,  and  the  position  of  every  dangerous  rock  and  concealed 
reef  Under  such  guidance,  he  pursues  his  journey  in  safety  over  the 
pathless  ocean.  Not  so  the  traveller  along  life's  dreary  road.  He  sets 
out  with  no  compass  but  his  ovv-n  good  sense,  and  vv^ith  no  chart  but 
his  own  prudence  ;  for  the  experience  of  those  Vv'ho  have  preceded  him 
in  his  journey,  throws  but  n  flickering  and  doubtful  light  on  his  path, 
full  as  likely  to  mislead  as  to  guide  him.     Ti'iere  is  so  little  sympathy 


20  AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 

between  the  young  and  the  old,  that  the  latter  are  at  best  but  bad  coun- 
sellors of  the  former.  Youth  is  the  season  of  hope  and  enjoyment,  and 
it  deals  with  tlie  present  and  the  future.  The  dreams  of  the  aged  are 
of  the  past,  for  the  present  yields  to  them  little  enjoyment,  and  the  fu- 
ture in  this  life  no  hope.  To  tlio  young,  the  world  is  in  its  first  blos- 
som, full  of  gayety,  redolent  of  sweets,  and  inspiring  with  promises  of 
delightful  fruit.  To  the  old  the  blossom  is  gone,  the  truit  has  been 
plucked,  and  the  winter  of  life  is  at  hand,  without  the  iiopes  of  a  re- 
turning spring  to  chase  away  its  darkness  and  its  gloom.  He  who  is 
in  the  midst  of  the  "first  bright  tumult  of  existence,"  finds  the  bitter 
experiences  of  age,  contradicted  by  his  own  sweet  hopes  and  keen  en- 
joyments, aiid  he  turns  from  them  with  an  incredulity,  which  can  only 
be  dispelled  by  the  feelings  of  three  score.  And  this  is  perhaps  the 
wiser  and  the  better  philosophy ;  for  cold  and  unmitigated  indeed 
would  be  the  lot  of  human  existence,  if  the  clouds  of  a  gloomy  future 
were  allowed  to  rest  on  and  obscure  the  bright  moments  of  the  present. 
To  refuse  to  inhale  the  odour  of  flowers  because  they  are  fleeting,  or  to 
enjoy  the  exiiilaration  of  spring,  or  the  mellow  delights  of  summer  and 
of  autumn,  because  they  fly  away  at  the  dreary  approach  of  coming 
winter,  is  no  dictate  of  wisdom  or  piety. 

Your  first  impressions,  gentlemen,  on  entering  the  world  will  be 
painful,  and  your  first  experience  of  its  disappointments  will  be  bitter. 
The  independence  which  you  have  so  long  sighed  after,  will  when  first 
tasted,  be  found  a  mixed  feeling  of  pleasure  and  pain,  and  the  responsi- 
bility which  accompanies  it,  will  rest  on  you  as  a  heavy  burden,  till 
time  and  habit  render  it  easy.  Separated  from  your  companions,  and 
cut  off  from  the  society  of  your  College  friends,  you  will  feel  yourselves 
strangers  in  the  world,  and  a  sensation  of  loneliness  will  creep  over 
you,  which  will  be  painfully  oppressive.  Your  new  pursuits  too,  will 
be  so  different  from  your  former  ones,  the  men  of  the  world  so  unlike 
the  companions,  whom  you  have  left  behind,  and  their  occupations, 
their  prejudices  and  their  tone  of  feeling,  will  appear  so  strange  to  you, 
that  you  will  almost  despair  of  ever  making  yourselves  at  home  with 
your  new  acquaintance.  These  feelings  however,  will  soon  wear  off", 
and  you  will  in  a  short  tune  be  prepared,  to  enter  earnestly  on  the  part 
which  you  are  to  play  in  the  great  drama  of  life. 

Much,  I  may  say  every  thing,  depends  on  the  first  step  which 
you  may  make — if  a  false  one  it  may  never  be  recovered.  Between 
your  labors  here  and  in  the  world  let  there  be  no  interregnum,  no 


ALUMNI  AND  URAULATING  CLASS.  21 


giving  up  a  year  or  two  to  pleasure  and  lool^ing  about,  but  enter  at 
once  on  the  profession  or  employment  which  is  to  secure  you  honor 
and  independence.  Tiie  cap  of  pleasure,  which  you  may  think  to  sip 
for  a  lew  days  or  months  and  then  relinquish  forever,  rely  on  it,  there 
is  great  danger  of  your  draining  to  the  dregs.  Every  day  that  you  put 
off  your  labors  adds  to  the  ditticulty  of  their  commencement,  until  at 
last  you  will  come  to  swell  the  number  of  your  predecessors,  who  have 
fallen  the  hopeless  victims  of  inglorious  idleness,  or  consuming  vice. 

In  selecting  a  profession,  rem.ember,  that  but  little  depends  on  the 
choice,  but  every  thing  on  the  degree  of  industry  and  energy  with 
which  it  is  followed.  Professions  now,  thanks  to  the  liberality  and  in- 
telligence of  the  age,  begin  to  rank  in  respectability  according  to  their 
usefulness,  and  the  envious  classification  of  learned  and  unlearned,  is 
fast  disappearing,  and  men  have  at  last  found  out,  that  learning  and  sci- 
ence are  as  useful  in  directing  the  labor  of  the  Farmer  and  the  Mechan- 
ic, as  of  the  Lawyer,  the  Physician,  or  the  Divine,  and  that  the  former 
have  been  base  and  the  latter  respectable,  simply  because  it  has  suited 
the  pride  or  tiie  caprice  of  the  learned,  to  call  them  so.  But  a  better 
and  a  juster  feeling  is  now  abroad  in  the  land,  and  every  usefnl  pro- 
fession is  fast  rising  to  the  same  level ;  each  being  an  indispensable  link, 
in  the  social  chain  which  binds  individuals  together.  As  an  evidence 
of  this,  we  are  told  that  more  statues  have  been  erected  in  Great  Britain, 
to  the  memory  of  the  inventor  of  the  steam  engine,  than  to  the  con- 
queror of  Napoleon,  and  there  are  few  persons  I  am  sure,  who  would 
not  prefer  the  reputation  of  a  Fulton  or  a  Whitney,  to  that  of  a  Mansfield 
or  a  Sydenham.  Whatever  may  be  your  calling,  gentlemen,  be  assured 
that  there  is  no  necessity  for  your  intellects  to  stagnate  in  its  prosecu- 
tion. Every  one  presents  a  wide  field  for  the  exercise  of  invention, 
and  the  play  of  genius.  Will  you  cultivate  the  earth?  As  much  as 
science  has  done  for  this  honorable  and  ancient  art,  how  much  remains 
undone?  how  many  secrets  are  locked  up — how  many  meliorating 
processes,  by  which  the  soil  might  he  made  to  yield  greater  products 
at  the  call  of  labor  are  as  yet  unknown,  and  how  many  useful  imple- 
ments remain  to  be  invented?  In  Medicine,  how  much  false  practice 
remain?  to  be  corrected,  how  many  pernicious  theories  to  be  exploded, 
how  many  conflicting  opinions  to  be  reconciled?  In  Law,  how  many 
intricacies  to  disentangle,  how  much  that  is  feudal  and  antiquated  to  be 
abolished,  and  how  much  that  is  inapplicable  to  our  age  and  our  country 
to  be  dispensed  with  ?     Survey  every  field  of  human  industry,  and  you 


22  AN  ADDllESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 


will  find  in  each,  much  that  calls  for  the  hand  of  skill  and  enterprise. 

In  selecting  your  profession,  lose  no  time  in  vain  efforts  to  find  out 
which  is  best  suited  to  your  genins  or  bent  of  mind.  Whatever  one 
devotes  himself  to  earnestly,  he  will  come  to  love,  and  whatever  he 
loves,  he  will  succeed  in.  I  do  not  mean  to  say,  with  Helvetius,  that 
all  men  are  born  with  the  same  natural  powers,  or  that  they  difl'er  from 
brutes,  only  in  the  gift  of  hands  and  fingers,  but  1  do  believe  that  the 
san^.e  force  of  mind  equally  exerted,  would  secure  the  same  success  in 
the  various  pursuits  of  life.  Some  young  men  after  commencing  a 
profession,  throw  down  their  books,  under  the  impression  that  they 
have  mistaken  their  jrenius.  and  turn  their  attention  to  something  else. 
Such  rarely  succeed  in  any  thing.  They  want  the  energy,  the  con- 
stancy, and  the  power  of  concentration,  without  which,  genius  is  use- 
less and  unavailing. 

Hut,  gentlemen,  while  an  earnest  and  untiring  attention  ought  to 
be  given  to  your  profession,  I  am  very  far  from  recommending  an  ex- 
clusive devotion  to  it.  The  technicalities  of  a  profession,  when  unre- 
lieved by  various  knowledge  and  a  cultivated  taste,  narrow  the  mind. 
A  Corinthian  capital  need  not  detract  from  the  strength  of  the  massy 
pillar  which  it  adorns,  nor  the  flowers  by  which  it  is  encircled  and 
beautified,  diminish  its  utility.  As  there  is  no  spot  so  desolate,  but  that 
cultivation  may  improve,  so  is  there  no  profession  so  dry,  but  may  be 
rendered  pleasing,  by  the  adornments  of  genius  and  taste.  The  know- 
ledge of  the  ancient  languages  which  you  have  acquired  here,  is  the 
key  which  admits  you  to  the  vast  treasure  houses  of  Greece  and  Kome. 
But  a  small  portion  of  their  contents  have  as  yet  been  surveyed  by  you, 
and  a  life-time  of  study  would  scarcely  make  you  familiar  with  them 
all.  Let  the  moments  which  can  not  and  ought  not  to  be  devoted  to 
the  toils  of  life,  and  which  too  many  surrender  to  the  vacuity  of  idle- 
ness, or  the  intoxications  of  sensual  and  unsatisfyingenjoyment,  be 
given  up  by  you  to  those  refined  pleasures,  which  spring  from  a  famil- 
iar and  oft  renewed  acquaintance,  with  the  philosophy  and  poetry  of 
the  ancients.  This  will  not  only  fill  up  an  aking  void  in  existence,- 
and  increase  the  happiness  of  life,  by  adding  a  new  resource  of  refined 
and  rational  enjoyment,  but  may  be  made  subservient  to  your  success 
in  your  more  serious  employments.  How  much  bad  taste  and  coarse 
invective  would  be  banished  from  our  legislative  halls,  and  how  much 
of  disgusting  and  unmitigated  dullness  would  be  excluded  from  our 
forensic  pleadings,  if  our  legislators  and  lawyers  would  devote  but  a 


AT.UMNI  AND  ORADU AT ING  CLA.SS.  /i3 


half  hour  iti  the  week,  to  the  ciiUivatioii  of  letters!  Scarcely  an  emi- 
nent man  hi  America,  hat  lahors  under  the  heavy  reproach,  of  wanting 
the  taste  and  relinement.  wliich  arc  derived  from  a  thorough  and  fa- 
miliar acquaintance  with  tiie  classics  of  Greece  and  Rome.  "VVIiilc 
every  incident  of  their  civil  and  military  history,  and  every  wheel  in 
the  machinery  of  their  Government,  is  familiar  to  our  politicians,  how 
little  do  they  know  or  understand  of  their  literature  /  \\  lio  can  pomt 
to  a  single  ripe  scholar  in  cither  branch  of  our  national  legislature — a 
single  individual  who  can  read  without  faltering  a  page  of  Sophocles 
or  an  oration  of  Cicero  ?  How  barren  is  our  eloquence  of  classical  al- 
lusion, how  dry  and  forbidding  the  specch.es  of  our  ablest  men,  how 
unattractive  their  arguments,  liow  uninviting  their  profoundest  specu- 
lations !  Reason  has  been  cultivated  to  the  neglect  of  the  imagination, 
and  logic  to  the  exclusion  of  rhetoric.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  rising- 
generation  will  v/ipe  off  this  disgrace  from  our  country,  by  causing 
their  college  acquaintance  with  the  classics,  to  become  more  and  more 
intimate,  and  by  giving  a  closer  attenaon  to  the  licautiful  models  of 
taste  and  genius,  which  have  come  down  to  us,  from  a  past  age.  Tiiey 
will  best  subserve  the  purposes  of  trutli,  and  extend  furthest  the  influ- 
ences of  virtue,  who  shall  succeed  in  rendering  them  most  attractive. 
Truth  should  no  longer  be  permitted  to  take  up  her  habitation  in  the 
bottom  of  a  well,  where  all  the  approaches  to  her,  are  dark,  gloomy, 
and  forbidding,  but  she  should  be  elevated  to  a  lofty  pedestal  and  adorn- 
ed with  flowers  of  loveliness  and  gems  of  beauty ;  then,  like  '-the  sta- 
tue which  enchants  the  world,"  she  would  challenge  the  admiration  of 
every  eye,  and  the  homage  of  every  heart. 

In  a  country  like  ours,  wiiere  a  passion  for  politics  is  universal,  I 
take  it  for  granted  that  you  will  soon  catch  the  infection.  Under  a 
popular  Government,  it  is  the  duty  of  every  citizen  to  qualify  himself 
to  vote  intelligently  on  the  questions  which  are  annually  presented  to 
his  judgment,  for  decision.  There  are,  and  will  perhaps  continue  to 
be,  but  two  great  parties  among  us,  and  you  will  bo  forced  to  side  with 
the  one  or  the  other.  Truth,  no  doubt,  occupies  the  middle  ground 
between  them,  but  such  is  the  force  of  the  passions  when  awakened, 
and  here  they  never  sleep,  that  few  are  found  so  phlegmatic  or  so  firm, 
as  to  remain  long  in  this  safe  position.  We  reverse  the  order  of  na- 
ture, and  gravitate  not  to  the  centre  but  to  the  poles ;  and  the  least  dis- 
turbance in  our  balance,  hurries  us  to  the  one  or  the  other  extremity. 
The  safer  course  for  a  young  man  then,  is,  for  a  short  time  at  least,  to 


24  AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 


form  -entangling  alliances"  with  neither  party,  until  by  study  and  re- 
fieciion,  he  fixes  his  political  principles.  lie  can  then  throw  his  weight 
into  tlic  scale  of  that  party,  whose  creed  and  practice,  approach  nearest 
to  his  own  well  considered  opinions.  Should  your  inclination  or  sense 
of  duty,  lead  you  to  take  a  prominent  part  in  politics,  remember,  that 
the  honor  and  interests  of  your  country  are  too  serious  and  sacred,  to 
be  made  stepping-stones  for  your  personal  ambition.  The  distinction 
drawn  between  private  and  public  honesty,  has  no  foundation  in  truth, 
A  dishonest  politician  is  a  dishonest  man,  and  he  who  would  betray 
the  interests  of  his  country,  or  the  confidence  of  his  constituents,  in  a 
place  of  public  trust,  would,  with  tlie  same  temptation  in  private  life, 
risk  the  discipline  of  a  prison  or  the  pillory.  This  arbitrary  and  false 
distinction,  drawn  by  the  American  Press,  has  done  more  to  encourage 
public  profligacy,  than  all  other  causes  put  together.  Let  the  knave 
who  barters  his  principles  for  profit  or  for  place,  and  makes  the  inter- 
ests of  the  people  which  he  has  sworn  to  defend,  subsidiary  to  his  own 
grovelling  ambition,  be  banished  from  public  confidence  and  separated 
like  a  leper  from  the  society  of  honest  men  !  For  so  long  as  our  poli- 
ticians are  allowed  to  enjoy  the  wages  of  political  iniquity^  and  the 
consideration  which  attaches  to  private  worth,  most  will  grasp  at  the 
double  reward,  leaving  those  Platonists  who  love  public  virtue,  inde- 
pendently of  the  public  esteem,  in  a  small  minority. 

1  will  not  insult  my  young  friends,  by  supposing  it  possible,  that 
they  can,  under  any  circumstances,  descend  to  the  low  arts  of  the  dem- 
agogue.    This  is  a  creature  of  some  intelligence  and  cunning,  who 
finding  himself  cut  ofl' by  bis  vulgarity  and  his  vices,  from  all  the  sym- 
pathies of  the  refined,  the  virtuous,  and  the  good,  courts  the  degiT,ding 
distinction  of  a  reputation,  gained  by  the  applause  of  the  ignorant,  the 
vulgar,  and  the  base.     His  whole  purpose  is  to  disturb  the  harmionies 
of  life,  break  the  chain  of  mutual  dependencies  which  bind  mankind 
together,  array  classes  against  each  other,  foster  prejudices,  hunt  down 
reputations  based  on  honest  principles  and  faithful  public  service,  and 
foment  jealousy,  discontent,  and  restlessness,  throughout  the  whole 
body  politic.     He  opposes  the  school  master,  for  the  same  reason  which 
led  Demetrius  of  Ephesus  to  discourage  the  preaching  of  St.  Paul — his 
craft  is  endangered.     He  lives  on  the  ignorance  of  tlie  people ;  with- 
draw the  congenial  aliment  and  he  dies.     Against  tlie  contagion  of  sucli 
a  character  as  this.  I  do  not  warn  you,  for  the  certificate  of  virtue  and 
learning  which  you  arc  about  to  receive  from  the  faculty  of  the  l^ni- 


ALUiUNI  AND  GRADUATING  CLAS*.  '  25' 

versity  is  warrant  enough  for  your  safety,  but  against  appealing  to  i};c 
passions  and  prejudices  of  the  ignorant,  at  all.  Even  when  the  mcfive 
is  good,  it  is  so  dangerous  and  so  liable  to  abuse,  that  the  !"-st  inten- 
tions can  barely  raise  it  to  a  level  with  that  questionable  morality, 
which  works  evil  that  good  may  come  of  it.  The  exalted  and  elevated 
parts  of  human  nature  should  alone  be  addressed — truth,  honorj  rea- 
son, patriotism. 

■  An  opposite  fault  is  characteristic  of  many  young  men  and  ought 
to  be  sedulously  avoided.  I  allude  to  the  feeling  of  contempt,  which 
they  express,  of  the  intelligence  and  virtue  of  the  uneducated  class. — 
Such  SL'ntiments  deprive  many  a  viituous  and  intelligent  man  of  that 
inilueiice  with  the  people,  which  might  otherwise  have  been  exerted  for 
their  benefit,  and  his  own  honorable  promotion  ;  and  causes  him  to  play 
unconsciously  into  the  hands  cf  the  demagogue,  and  strengthen  the 
power  which  all  ought  to  aid  in  wresting  from  iiis  grasp.  Our  Govern- 
ment is  founded  on  the  will  and  power  of  the  people,  and  we  sliall  be 
better  employed  in  invigorating  and  encouraging  what  is  good,  and 
curbing  folly  and  excess,  by  the  mild  influences  of  our  exaniple,  tlian 
in  impotent  railing,  and  contemptuous  ridicule. 

There  is  another  subject,  gentlemen,  which  I  will  in  conclusion 
allude  to  ;  a  subject  which  though  more  becoming  another  speaker  and 
another  occasion,  is  so  intimately  connected  with  the  morality  and  hap- 
piness of  the  people,  and  the  stability  of  our  Government,  that  I  can 
not  pass  by,  without  expressing  my  opinion  of  its  value  and  import- 
ance. You  readily  perceive,  that  I  allude  to  religion.  At  the  present 
day,  when  light  is  breaking  from  so  many  new  quarters  on  the  cardinal 
truths  of  Christianity,  when  reason,  and  science,  and  investigation,  are 
piling  up  proofs  upon  proofs,  he  who  is  tinctured  with  infidelity,  dis- 
plays far  more  of  weakness,  than  wickedness.  It  is  a  superficial  phi- 
losphy,  says  ths  immortal  Bacon,  which  leads  to  unbelief  and  atheism, 
biit  when  profoundly  studied;  produces  veneration  for  God,  and  renders 
faith  in  him  the  ruling  principle  of  our  life.  A  striking  illustration  of 
this  beautiful  truth,  is  found  in  the  history  of  the  modern  science  of 
Ge  'logy.  While  in  its  infancy,  its  vague  and  doubtful  testimony  was 
seized  on  by  the  enemies  of  revelation,  for  the  purpose  of  overturning 
the  fundamental  truths  of  Mosaic  history.  Its  friends  were  for  a  mo- 
ment staggered  ;  but  their  fears  were  short-lived.  From  every  fresh 
dive  which  the  Geologist  made  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  he  arose, 
freighted  with  the  richest  illustrations  of  the  truth  of  sacred  history.— 


2G  AN  ADDRESS.  &C. 


Buried  worlds  rose  at  the  biddino-  of  science,  to  reveal  the  hidden  re- 
cords  of  antedeluvian  existence,  and  put  to  shame  the  doubts  and  cavils 
of  the  most  unblushing  infidelity.  Atheism  is  forced  once  more  to 
have  recourse  to  its  old  weapon — ridicule — for  reason  and  science 
v\^hen  properly  interrogated,  giv^e  no  encouraging  response. 

Tile  christian  religion  is  emphatically,  the  religion  of  civilization, 
of  man,  in  Iiis  highest  state  of  improvement.  The  world  has  witnessed 
the  rise  and  fall  of  a  thousand  creeds,  built  with  the  facility  of  card 
houses,  and  blown  away  as  easily,  the  offspring  of  ignorant  supersti- 
tion or  ambitious  fraud.  Our  religion  has  withstood  the  corrosion  of 
eighteen  centuries,  has  resisted  the  fires  of  persecution,  and  the  assaults 
of  infidelity,  and  it  still  stands  an  everlastingmonum.ent  of  the  wisdom, 
the  goodness;,  and  the  benevolence,  of  its  founder.  Its  witnesses  are 
not  the  ignorant,  the  superstitious,  and  the  enslaved,  but  the  brightest 
intelligences  have  been  the  m.ost  earnest  in  testifying  to  its  truth. — 
Newton,  Curier,  Locke,  Bacon,  and  Boyle,  the  deepest  explorers  into 
-  the  phenomena  of  nature,  and  the  most  patient  and  successful  investi- 
gators into  the  laws  of  the  human  mind,  are  united  and  decided  in 
their  belief  of  the  leading  truths  of  revelation.  The  most  intelligent 
and  virtuous  nations  of  the  earth,  are  those  where  a  belief  m  trie  doc- 
trines, and  a  practice  of  the  precepts  of  Christianity,  are  most  general. 
As  man  ascends  in  the  scale  of  being,  as  he  is  lifted  up  by  virtue  and 
intelligence,  nearer  the  throne  of  Omnipotence,  his  views  conform  more 
and  more  nearly  to  revelation,  and  his  faith  becomes  more  ardent,  more 
strong,  and  more  undoubting.  The  higher  he  mounts,  the  clearer  his 
atmosphere,  and  the  brighter  his  hopes.  Whatever  is  valuable  in  mo- 
dern improvement,  whatever  is  beneficial  in  modern  reform,  whatever 
refinement  there  exists  in  modern  society,  whatever  anieliorations  there 
are  in  the  lot  and  condition  of  man,  are  all  owing  to  the  influence  of 
the  Bible.  It  was  the  influence  of  this  book,  which  elevated  the  char- 
acter of  our  Washington,  purified  his  patriotism,  chastened  his  ambi- 
tion, and  called  forth  in  bold  relief,  that  colossal  grandeur  of  soul,, 
which  marked  him  the  purest  of  patriots,  and  the  first  of  men.  It  was 
the  influence  of  this  same  book,  which  gave  beauty  to  the  character, 
value  to  the  services,  and  a  charm  to  the  name  of  HIM,  whose  newly 
made  grave  is  yet  moist  with  a  nation's  tears  ! 


